October 29, 2009 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) – SMEs and small businesses moving into serviced office space can now benefit from a new partnership between
Avanta Managed Offices and
ThinkGrid, avoiding the need to make capital investment in IT hardware and software.
Avanta operates 19 serviced office centres in London, Manchester, the Thames Valley and Edinburgh, whilst ThinkGrid provides hosted business IT services from the cloud, on an on demand basis. As a result, businesses no longer need to make large upfront CapEx investments in PCs, servers and supporting software licenses, or dedicate time and resources to managing IT. Instead, they can move all these costs to more predictable monthly contracts fully managed for them.
By working with ThinkGrid and Avanta, new businesses moving into Avanta serviced offices can immediately begin to use low cost PCs called thin clients, familiar desktop software and applications such as Microsoft Windows and Office as well as file servers for saving data. Alternatively, established businesses relocating to Avanta can continue to use their existing PCs to access ThinkGrid’s services and then switch to thin clients when these older machines need replacing.
ThinkGrid’s services are built on the same type of IT infrastructure that corporate businesses and banks use, and can be accessed via a standard internet connection, anywhere in the world. This means that employees on the move or working from home can benefit from the same level of IT as those at Avanta’s offices.
ThinkGrid also enables Avanta customers to securely store their valuable business data off-site, so removing the cost and headaches associated with storage, disaster recovery and data back-up. As customers only pay for what they use on a monthly rolling contract, they are also free to scale the number of users up and down, as well as adding and removing applications - all at the click of a mouse.
“Avanta serviced office centres are known for providing outstanding levels of customer service, and this new deal with ThinkGrid extends those levels even further,” comments Geraint Evans, Avanta’s sales & marketing director. “Our business service package already includes 4 or 8Mb resilient internet access and together with telecoms services, the deal with ThinkGrid now completes the menu of services available to Avanta customers.”
“In the current economic climate, most SMEs and small businesses need to channel their management resources on their core business without worrying about the cost, availability and security of their IT systems. So, by linking up with ThinkGrid we have taken a significant step towards minimising customer IT issues by providing them with a cost-effective solution that will provide them with real peace of mind.”
”Avanta has built a strong reputation around delivering high-quality, flexible serviced office space that offers customers everything they need to start operating from day one. We are therefore extremely pleased to be partnering with them to offer no fuss, flexible IT that is ready to go the minute customers move in,” said Rob Lovell, CEO at ThinkGrid. “Thousands of our SME customers across the UK are already seeing the value of our business IT on-demand services, which remove all the pain and leave only the benefits of IT, so that they can focus on what they do best. Avanta customers that want a free trial of our services should go to www.thinkgrid.co.uk/avanta.”
About Avanta:
Avanta was formed in 2004 by David Alberto. The company offers highly flexible, unbranded office space, with advanced and competitively price technology, tailor made to meet the requirements of the occupier. In the UK it currently manages more than 630,000 sq ft of office space in prime locations in London, the Thames Valley, Manchester and Edinburgh.
About ThinkGrid:
ThinkGrid provides IT services from the Cloud. Launched with the aim of disrupting the way that businesses currently purchase, use and manage IT, ThinkGrid provides enterprise class IT to small and medium businesses through its network of partners. ThinkGrid removes the management and cost burden of owning IT by offering it to customers as an on demand service. Its current services include Hosted Virtual Desktop, Exchange and Communications, VoIP, Software-as-a-Service, Virtual Server Infrastructure and Cloud Storage. With ThinkGrid, each user is given their own personalised IT that operates in exactly the same way as a traditional computing environment. The difference is that with ThinkGrid’s Cloud Computing platform, it can be accessed from anywhere in the world through an Internet connection. ThinkGrid customers only pay for what they use based on the needs of the business, and can scale up and down at the click of a mouse.
